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WIP Wednesday: Life, Making, Planning and Blogtacular

It's fair to say that we just had the best 'family' summer ever. With our youngest child now six years old and Archie no longer a puppy, travelling was relatively easy and quite fun (largely thanks to "Daddy's Holiday Mega-Mix") despite a long journey with traffic jams. Hanging out together, at home and away, involved conversations and laughs - and even a little dancing. The previous stresses of travelling with young kids seemed long gone. We found a magical 'sweet spot' - everyone got along and there wasn't even much squabbling. I will admit there have been many times I doubted we would ever get to this point, and I'm sure it won't last indefinitely, so writing it here is a way of cementing it in our family history. It really actually happened.

With Monday's return to school marking the end of our 'idyllic' summer, I set to work. As I said earlier in the week, I was keen to get back to making something, and a parcel arrived from Scheepjes who are kindly supporting several new projects which I will be able to bring to you as free patterns or tutorials over the coming months.

I've had so much fun making one of the projects already - it is almost done and I'll share it with you on Sunday, which also happens to be Roald Dahl Day. Several people on Instagram have already guessed what it is, but I'll leave it for you to see if you can work it out...

As well as making a big black furry thing, I've taken time for planning. Writing this blog means I get lots of offers to do other interesting things, but doing them takes time away from the thing I love doing most... which is the making and blogging that got me the offers in the first place. It's a Catch-22 situation. Taking a couple of weeks away from these page gave me time to think about it and I decided to be more methodical in my approach to blogging for a while and see how it goes. On Monday I started using the Blogtacular* /Lollipop Designs Life Planner. I've separated the columns into 'actions', 'blog' and 'life', and have used the free worksheet downloads to help with prioritising and decision-making.

A disappointingly high proportion of potential posts and projects usually get lost because I run out of time (my child-free-chore-free hours are severely limited), so I've allowed for preparation and drafting posts as well as time for 'making'. Hopefully this will make it easier to get things done and to be able to say yes to more of the things I'd like to do. We'll see how it goes, but so far so good as I already drafted and scheduled several posts and a new tutorial, plus I know which projects I'll be working on over the next few months!

I have so much more to show and tell, but that's it for today. I'll be back on Friday with my new pattern - I know a lot of people are waiting for this one, and might be casting on at the weekend.

*PS I also booked my early-bird ticket for Blogtacular 2016 (June 18th) - tickets are available at a heavily discounted price for just a couple more weeks, and if they sell out, that will be it. (Any remaining tickets will go on sale at the regular higher price next year.) If you are thinking of going, it's definitely a good time to snap them up, and there is also a lovely facebook group so you can get to know the other attendees in advance.

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